Contrary to Previous Reports, Cities Are Not Dead What keeps them alive, says William H. Whyte, is the crowd

Urban thinker William H. Whyte has read endless obituaries of the American city. He has heard it called everything from "an ecological smear" to a "behavioral sink." The future, he has been told, is elsewhere: in the suburbs, the country, anywhere but the city. Nonsense, says Whyte. "The core of the city has held. It has not gone to hell." What is more, he argues, "the city remains a magnificent place to do business, and that is part of the rediscovery of the center. While we are losing a lot of functions that we used to enjoy, we are intensifying the...